


Dustbowl Dance

by unethicalcoffee



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 15:51:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2817797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unethicalcoffee/pseuds/unethicalcoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They meld, and Liara relives Mindoir and Torfan through Shepard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dustbowl Dance

Her hands are buried beneath flakes and freckles and callouses and cuts; they are thin, if swollen, and long, ghosting on guitar strings, spinning low, timorous music. Small white arms wriggle around her, little red head, big green eyes – _keep playing, sis!_ – she hadn't even realised she'd stopped and her fingers just go again like all she needs to do is flip a switch and she can do anything.

But she can't. Her breath is a storm, her heart a kicking horse, her vision as keen as an oracle's; past sheaves of corn – green towers, yellow beacons – are small white arms, big green eyes – _help me, sis!_ – little red head turned redder with blood. Horse kicking and screaming, storm stirring and crashing, vision blurring and failing, she doesn't know when but they drag her out and tell her it's alright, heave her past her burning home, her own reflection in the blood of her blood, _liars_.

She signs up for the Alliance military the minute she turns eighteen (exactly one minute past midnight) because she needs to kill. She's here to help the galaxy, she says, she'll do whatever it takes (really she knows exactly what it takes, and _that's_ what she's here for), her bloodlust is her lifeline now. She needs to calm a kicking horse, end an endless storm. If she bathes in red surely she'll never dream of it again (but this doesn't make sense, and perhaps she knows it).

She's good at it. All she needs to do is flip a switch and she can do anything (bribe, threaten, cajole, kill). She doesn't need to ask for Torfan (they know she's the Butcher before she even draws her blade) and with blood on her smiling lips – _keep playing, sis! –_ she cleaves through batarians, swinging a sickle to get to little white arms, little red head, big green eyes, already dead. _That's the last one_ , a quavering voice; she watches her living crew cradle their dead, so many losses, glaring at her with dread. That's when she realises the storm has cleared, the horse is dead, nothing but white noise left in her head.

But sometimes she paints it blue, ever since you. At night she dreams in red, but in the day she dreams of little blue heads. Liara blinks down at their clasped hands, up at Shepard's eyes, her brow creased as she stares intently back. Big green eyes are flecked with red, a little red head turned redder with blood, bright glowing scars like cosmic paths to freckles, stars.

“Are you afraid of me?”

Liara shakes her head and recites, “I am with you until the end, Shepard.”

And her red lips curl slowly, a grimace struggling into the smile it wants to be; Liara's heart breaks and she presses Shepard's hands.

“Now let's go kick some ass.”

 


End file.
